Sunday, May 8, 2011

Citibank hits by series of sanctions

Bank Indonesia announced on Friday a series of sanctions on Citibank Indonesia for violations of internal bank regulations and risk management as well as weaknesses in its internal control and operating procedures.

Citibank was banned from adding new wealth management, credit card clients for 2 years. The bank also banned from using third party debt collector for 3 years and banned from opening new branch for 1 years. The sanctions announced by BI Deputy Governor Budi Rochadi.

Citibank is at the center of two ongoing scandals, one surrounding suspicions of embezzlement and the other involving the death of a credit card customer.

The sanctions took immediate effect on Friday last week, but Citibank was allowed to continue serving its existing customers.

A former Citibank relationship manager, 47-year-old Inong Malinda Dee, is accused of embezzling millions of dollars from wealthy clients in March. In the same month, Irzen Octa, secretary general of a small political party, died at one of Citibank’s branch offices in South Jakarta after being confronted by debt collectors hired by the bank to settle his credit card bills.

Bank Indonesia also said Citibank country manager Sharik Mochtar and other executives would undergo fit-and-proper tests.

Sanctions could become more severe, depending on the results of investigations by the police and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).

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